February 21, 2004

When Are There Too Many?

It looks like the idea of private labeling telephone service is upon us. Now Morpheus is jumping into the VioIP space with their announcement earlier in the week, which I somehow missed.

What we have here is once again histroy repeating itself. First the railroads came along then Ma Bell strung telegraph wires. Well today, fiber runs along side those rails, and there is lots of it to be lit. Companies with switchboards were the phone company, thus the importance of a network that can switch calls between networks. Sound familier?

The playing field will be filled with many companies. In ten years time, most will be gone, VoIP will have some form of regulation, or at least structure, but now, it's the wild west time. Companies are panning for gold. So, while the long term money will be made on the value of the companies with the most customers, the short term money is with the companies selling picks and shovels. The networks, the underlying carriers, the switch and gateway manufacturers.